


Variations in Blue

by current_events



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 04:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/current_events/pseuds/current_events
Summary: Jet takes Spike to Mars. Mars reminds Spike of Jet. A short, three-parter in which the two of them come to something of an understanding regarding their relation to one another.Note: Only the third and final chapter is explicit.





	1. Dog Days of Summer

“Jet's back.”

Faye left the billiard table as soon as she had delivered the news. She chose to show up just as Spike was lining up his shot, so, naturally, he missed.

“Thanks a lot, Faye.”

“Any time!”

The bar was a few grades above what they were used to, done over in mahogany and what looked like real leather. It was a quarter past eleven, and their bounty was supposed to show up at midnight. But this was Mars, where nothing was ever what it seemed. Spike had tried to dissuade them from taking the job, but they were adamant and—this was the strangest part—unanimous. They just wanted to see Mars again, or so they said. To take in some clean air, for once; to go see one of those old movies at the Palladium. He knew better. If ever there was something Jet and Faye could bond over, it would be a classy horse race or craps game.

“Of course,” Spike sighed.

He hadn't knocked in a single ball, and he was playing against his weakest opponent, himself.

“Hey, Jet.”

He joined him at the bar.

“Drink?”

“Yeah.”

“So...”

The raucous laughing in the back was drowned out every few minutes by the rush of young couples coming in. Jet glanced his way.

“So, what's your deal with this place, anyway? Unhappy childhood?”

Spike laughed. That's exactly what Jet would think.

“We only hang out in the fancy neighborhoods,” Spike said. “But every rich guy here has a hundred poor people he's leaning on.”

“I didn't know you were such a humanitarian.”

It was nice to sit together like this, as if they were just another young couple stopping in for a drink (although, in their case, it would be more of a May-December deal). Spike wondered how they must have looked to the gray-faced businessmen on either side of them. Like a couple of dock workers, maybe, lost on the wrong side of the tracks? Criminals of the lesser variety, specializing not in fraud or money laundering but petty thievery or human trafficking—although the latter was more of a middle-class crime. Or even as friends, without a tie as tenuous as bounty hunting, or as fraught as the debts they had accumulated. Or maybe as trade: there were opportunistic young men and women lingering on the sidelines or poised on a million-woolong arm. Could it be they even appeared as lovers, having to rendezvous outside their neighborhood for fear of being caught in a moment of weakness?

They sat together for a good hour, in friendly silence, until it became clear their mark wasn't going to show.

“Let's go to the Palladium,” Spike said. He may have whined a little.

“Come on. I'll buy you another drink,” Jet replied.

Faye was playing poker with a table of old men in suits, the loud laughers in the back. The unholy light in her eye meant she was winning, but drunk enough to keep upping the ante. It was Spike's vain hope he wouldn't have to intervene before the night was through. He was, despite his best intentions, having a decent time.

“No, really, Spike. Why were you so against us coming here? We stop at Mars all the time.”

Jet was getting a little on the tipsy side himself. It was a rare sight, and endearing, but Spike was tired of the questions. 'No, really,' Jet had said. It was far from the first time he'd asked that question.

There are parks with trees, and flowers, even a lake! That had been Jet's response when Spike had first turned down the job. There were trees on the ship, albeit miniature ones. Think of the food! Faye had exclaimed. And at this, everyone's stomach had grumbled. There was, admittedly, no food on the ship. Still, Spike didn't want to go. The neighborhood has everything anyone could ever want: entertainment, architecture, and history; scenery, beautiful women, theater, and a viper's nest of criminals called The Water's Edge. And all they had to do was sit at the bar and wait for a man in a checkered suit to stop in at midnight.

The galaxy was full of viper's nests, and Spike didn't want to go. He wouldn't have gone, either, had Jet and Faye simply taken their respective cruisers and left the BeBop orbiting Ganymede. For some reason, the whole ship had to land along with everyone in it. They would never admit it in a million years, but those two made a devastating team when they chose to play nice. 

“Listen, Jet...”

Jet raised his eyebrows and rested his head in his metal hand. That was his 'listening' face.

“You're really in no shape to work right now.”

“What? Are you saying I'm drunk?”

“That's exactly what I'm saying.”

“If I'm drunk, then what does that make you?”

“Classic drunk reasoning. Just because we drank the same amount, doesn't mean we feel the same effects.”

“Oh, so now I'm not only drunk—” Jet slammed his hand on the polished mahogany tabletop for emphasis. “—I'm also illogical!”

“Gentlemen...if you'll pardon me.”

A waiter hovered behind them, very dignified in his three piece suit.

Just as Spike was about to deliver a scathing retort, they were summarily eighty-sixed from the bar. Faye tumbled after them, having been caught cheating by the loudest of the laughers.

“I had him in a corner!” She slurred. “I was...seconds away from scoring big!”

“Can you believe that guy? What an asshole!” From Jet, who was just drunk enough to turn his good-natured combativeness to anger.

Spike sighed. A perfectly good argument ruined, and he was left dragging Faye through the streets and making sure Jet didn't circle back to show their waiter a piece of his mind. This was exactly what he'd been hoping to avoid.

“All right, everyone. Let's cash in our chips and get the hell out of here.”

It was a blisteringly hot night. They made their way down to where the BeBop was parked, the abandoned fuel stations over on the other side of town. Only a few hours earlier, the teeming streets had been nearly deserted. Now they had to weave their way through the outflow from the bars, the theaters, the concert halls. Glamorous couples slid into classy vehicles, or disappeared down alleyways. They passed by a high-rise, one of many on the block, and it was the very same building—or one so much like it that the truth didn't matter—that Spike had passed by as a kid on the way to and from playing hooky. Another reason he would have preferred the blank walls of the BeBop: the last thing he needed was another trip down memory lane. It wasn't Mars, but this neighborhood that he needed to put behind him.

A tall, furtive man in a checkered suit bumped into him, nearly dropped his briefcase to which he clung dearly, and booked it down the nearest alleyway.

“Shit. You two—stay.”

Spike propped Faye up against the wall of the high-rise and pushed a wandering Jet beside her. He frowned and started to grumble, but in his state, he was easily subdued.

“Spike!” Jet started after him.

“Just...stay here and make sure Faye doesn't look for another poker game.”

The appeal to Jet's sense of chivalry worked, just as Spike knew it would.

The alley was empty. That is, it was full of the wrong kind of people, and not one among them was wearing a checkered suit or carrying a briefcase. Spike traveled through the crowd with half a mind to give up the whole thing. This wasn't shaping up to be a profitable night, and he had two drunks to shepherd, not to mention a possible third who was bound to be even more uncooperative than the others.

Heavy footsteps trailed behind him, slow and circumspect. Someone who had seen one two many action films was trying to sneak up on him. He waited, to be polite.

“Ha!” Shouted a voice from above.

A quick backhand settled the matter. The checkered suit came crashing to the ground, briefcase at his feet.

“Whatcha got there?” Spike asked. With an alarming speed he hadn't shown until now, the man leapt onto his briefcase just as Spike managed to grab hold of the handle.

“Hey! Spike!”

Jet burst through the crowd of stragglers, Faye in tow, looking very green and holding her side as if she might keel over at any moment. Checkered suit took the opportunity to make his getaway and Spike, in his surprise, didn't think to stop him.

“Ah...damn.”

“Spike! We're here to help!”

“Thanks, guys, but I don't think that'll be necessary.”

“Uh...where'd he go? You just had him!”

“I don't feel so great...” Faye began to moan faintly. 

They were nowhere near the BeBop now. Lighting up a much-needed cigarette, Spike began the long walk back, one arm around each wayward drunk. It would have been safer to stick to the streets but tonight he couldn't bear to be reminded of a life it had cost him his own just to escape from. He didn't feel like sifting through young bodies, entwined, high on the best designer drugs, beautiful, bound to one another by various debts and intrigues. Instead, he led them through the labyrinthine alleyways he was pleased to discover he still knew like the back of his hand. A cool breeze had come in from the wharf, strange considering they must still have been miles away from the water. It alleviated the stifling, summer heat, until the sweat that made the lapel of his jacket cling to the back of his neck was finally allowed to cool. 

Summers on Mars. The building projects they had argued about in city hall, promotions appearing all over the city for the “good citizens of Mars to perform their civic duty” by going to these exercises in futility, and thereby “contributing to the process of democracy”. The culmination of a summer's worth of ads and restless politicians was the vast network of avenues that stretched for miles around and the high-rises breaking the skyline. Spike had just been a kid when the pavement was still drying. Somewhere in the convolution was a footprint he'd made in cement when technically he should have been in AP Astrophysics. Walking to school was the best part of the day back then. Six thirty sharp every morning, nabbing a melon bread from the corner store, slowly he would make his way through the ins and outs of a neighborhood under major construction. Scaffolding had been erected on nearly every street, and orange webbing ran along every wire fence. No amount of plastic, wire, or steel could keep in the chaos of shouting men and clanging machinery. It was quite a sight.

Back then, Spike wanted desperately to be one of those shouting men. Big, muscle-bound men with their easy camaraderie had built up the planet into the oasis it's become. When he came into his own as a moderately successful runner for the syndicate, he finally realized the truth about his childhood ambition. It wasn't so much the job he wanted, it was the men. And then: Julia. 

“Well, here we are.” 

The second they had the BeBop in their sights, Ein began to bark. Spike was about to unceremoniously dump his extra weight to the ground when Ed came barreling towards them with a whoop. Jet seized Spike by the waist, breathed in deeply, and commenced to scold the kid with big words like “responsibility” and the “arrogance of youthful exuberance”. What with Faye grumbling at his side, it was all very...domestic. Spike didn't like domestic. What he did like, however, was the way Jet's barrel chest pressed into him with every breath he took. Ed stood slack-jawed by the sheer number of words coming toward her like a pane of glass, but luckily for them all, she grew bored and wandered back to the ship.

“Come on, you big lug,” Spike said, tugging Jet along. Believe it or not, the man was still holding forth on the topic of respecting one's elders and always coming home in time for supper. 

“Don't interrupt,” Jet said. 

“Okay, fine—old man.”


	2. Winsome, Lose Some

Back at the BeBop after yet another botched job, Spike hadn't been expecting to be given an in by way of the less illustrious side of Jet's past. 

“After Elisa, well, I was taking a break from women. I thought with a guy, it'd be, I don't know, different. Less complicated. They needed an inside man. It wasn't exactly an official order, but the chief couldn't afford to lose the case, and he may have mentioned that the kid preferred men...older men. Okay, 'mention' is a nice word. What he really did was call me into the office and ask me, point blank, if I'd ever, uh, you know...”

“Climbed Mount Fuji?”

“No, wise-ass. If I'd ever, uh, sucked a dick before.”

“Wow. He really wanted to solve that case.”

“Yeah. Well, I'd been after one of the main players for almost a year, and this was my best shot at taking him down. I'd never, uh, done anything like that before, but if it meant catching Johann, I was willing to try. It was all very hush-hush. Technically, I wasn't even on the case, which meant—”

“If anything went wrong...”

“Yeah, I'd have no backup. As you can imagine, it all went very wrong. At first, everything was peachy. I started hanging out at the kid's favorite bar. I introduced myself, we got friendly. I mentioned I was down on my luck, that I used to be in security... So, he introduces me to his father and recommends me as a body-guard. He really did like me—the son, I mean. I mean, he seemed to care about me a lot. He even tried to get me to move in with him.”

“You were okay with all that? The dating a guy part.”

“I...can't say I didn't like it. When all's said and done, we had a good time together. We used to get yakisoba every night, after I was done escorting his father around the city. He would always wait for me at the Blue Oyster, the bar at the casino, and then we'd go home together.”

Jet sighed.

“For a whole month, everything went perfectly. Too perfectly, looking back. It turned out Marco knew all along—about my being in the ISSP. In fact, he was the only thing keeping me alive; any time someone got suspicious, he would throw them off the scent. He could only keep it up for so long, and eventually, his father found out. It wasn't pretty. I'm still not sure why Marco didn't turn me in as soon as he found out, unless he was hoping I'd get rid of his father for him.”

“That why you didn't want me going after him? Two million woolongs is a lot of money, you know.” 

“A man pays his debts. I owe him my life. The least I can do is give him his.”

“He probably loved you.”

Jet was silent.

“He might still.”

“I guess I'll never know.”

“Hey.”

Spike pointed out Jet's cigarette, which had long since gone out. He relit it for him, and took a long drag on it before handing it back. Jet stared at it as if smoking were a foreign concept.

“Come on, man, I need food. If we don't eat soon, we'll start to go crazy,” Spike said.

“It's true. If a man gets too hungry, he loses his senses one by one.”

“Which one goes first?”

“Common sense, of course.”

“You're a real comedian.”

Spike watched Jet's retreating back and allowed himself to pretend, as briefly as a half-second, that he was going to be Jet's next, ill-fated young lover. And then, just like that, he shook the thought away, tempting as it was. He wasn't about to mess up a good thing by hitting on a guy as...old-fashioned as Jet. Behind that prominent, noble brow was a mind full of those mainstays of yesteryear, the kind of things that let cops and soldiers sleep easy at night. Even if Spike could shimmy in the cracks between the Epictetan stoicism and the Protestant work ethic, the fallout would leave him marooned on some pitiful asteroid belt, back at square one. He knew better than to take a crack at a relic. Of course, it wasn't always easy. Jet liked to coddle him; he was warm and overbearing, and always forgave him for leaving his dirty dishes on the coffee table. He had that father-figure vibe going on, but when push came to shove, he would always forgive (and bear grudges) rather than wield an iron fist. No, he wasn't going to make it easy for Spike.


	3. Easy Come, Easy...

Nothing was ever simple with Jet. Everything held a double meaning.

“Don't you ever get lonely?” Jet asked.

There were many answers to that question. Spike might have said no, he preferred to be alone, or, no, every look forward was a glance back, and he lived with one foot in a rotating mausoleum; or, yes, he hadn't held or been held by another human being in a long, long time...but this wasn't loneliness, it was an empty bed even he didn't sleep in any more. Out of these, there was only one thing he could have said.

“You know, I don't really think about it.”

“Yeah, I thought you'd say that.”

There was that familiar look of frustration on Jet's face. What could he have been thinking but the usual story he seemed to tell himself, that Spike was hiding his real feelings behind a cloud of smoke. Spike must be lonely. All men get lonely, especially bounty hunters, drifting in space from one job to the next without any real destination in mind but the next meal. Passing the months in a rickety, old ship captained by the galaxy's most fastidious ex-cop. Even now, as the two of them shared the last of the cigarettes, Jet dropped his ash right into the tray with a flick of the wrist. Looking down, Spike noticed the ash collecting on his lapel.

They reached for the sake bottle at the same time.

“After you, pops,” Spike said.

Jet grumbled disapprovingly.

“Shouldn't I respect my elders?”

“You don't have to rub it in.”

“Rub what in?”

“That I'm so much older than you!”

“Careful with that, it's all the booze we have!” 

“Speaking of which...”

Jet poured the last of the sake into Spike's cup. They toasted one another, as if they had something to celebrate.

“To the impetuosity of youth,” Jet declared. He sounded three sheets past the winds of Jupiter, which blew an average of 90 miles per hour. Remarkable, the little things we remember from childhood.

“To whoever said...with age comes wisdom. Hey!”

Spike rubbed the crown of his head where Jet had swatted him with his metal hand. He clearly wasn't offended, judging by the grin on his face. Corporal punishment wasn't really his style.

“So, are you lonely?” Spike asked.

“Course. As much as anyone else,” Jet said pointedly.

“Maybe I can do something about that.”

Faye was off hunting a bounty with a mere 8,000 woolongs on his head, and Ed had taken Ein on some mysterious journey to the other side of the ship involving overactive water pipes and gremlins. It was just Spike, Jet, and the couch, the very same one he'd only just peeled himself off of after spending three days and nights recuperating from Vicious. And Lin.

“Now I know you're drunk,” Jet said, laughing.

Spike leaned in.

“Just sit back, relax, and let me try something. It just might help.”

Right under his ribs, on the left side, there was still a dull ache that sharpened whenever he took a deep enough breath. It was barely noticeable.

Jet had stopped grinning. He took Spike by the shoulders and brought their mouths together. It was hesitant for the first few moments; they weren't sure if they would fit together, or if their lips might repel one another. Then, it became what it was meant to be: two guys making out on a couch. Easy and natural. A mouth large and rough, assaulting him, but in a kind way; a rough tongue with a single mind, thrusting sloppily into his mouth (he liked that the best); impossibly big hands surrounding him, in his hair, everywhere, down his flank, squeezing his ass, coming to rest in that tender spot right behind his balls. Squeezing again, but gentler. In a burst of energy, he flopped down on Jet and burrowed into him. A dark and masculine smell, with the undertone of fresh sweat, surrounded him where he pressed his face into the open V of Jet's jumpsuit. They were both breathing heavily.

“What's gotten into you?” Jet murmured. What had gotten into Spike?

Spike made a pitiful sound, and pushed his aching dick against Jet's thigh.

Jet sighed.

“Looks like you could use a hand.”

The metal arm shifted Spike to rest on his side between Jet's legs, while the warm, human one undid his belt. This was supposed to be about Jet, but here they were, Jet's human hand making a tent in Spike's already tented trousers, and pulling on him with expert form. There was a split second there where Spike's mind went completely, blissfully blank, and he saw nothing but the darkness behind his eyelids.

The light filtered in. He couldn't breathe, and he knew he was right there on that razor's edge of coming really hard, far too quickly.

“Wait.”

There was more kissing. Jet liked to suck on Spike's bottom lip between every other kiss, which felt amazing but was utterly unhelpful.

“Wait,” he repeated. The hand stilled. Jet waited and his kisses turned chaste.

“Don't you wanna come?” Jet asked. A perfectly innocent question.

Did he really think that was the point of all of this?

Spike drew himself up, dislodging Jet's hand. This was the kind of body he'd side-eyed so much growing up, these the broad shoulders and taut arms, the legs he'd seen straining under stone and steel now hooked behind his back, pulling him closer. He ran his hands along every plane and muscle. That old jump suit was still on, just bunched around his waist, and Jet's hard dick lay trapped beneath the folds.

“Your eyes...”

Spike shut him up with a kiss.

“Are you still okay with this?” He asked.

Jet seemed to be considering it. After a moment of silence, he broke out into a grin.

“Shit, yeah. If you are.”

“Oh, yeah. You know, Jet...you're totally my type.”

“Really? That's news to me.” Jet didn't believe him, but that was par for the course.

Spike just smiled and got down to the business of peeling off the rest of Jet's jumpsuit. They didn't need to talk about it. The men he'd coveted all those years, who he'd watched and dreamed about, in the days before he'd stopped dreaming about anything else but that other thing they didn't need to talk about; during those days before he’d stopped dreaming at all. Nowadays he didn't need to close his eyes to see phantoms or fleeting shadows.

“I'm not fucking out here,” Jet said.

“Come on...”

“No. Hey—”

Spike was tired of just looking at that nice, thick cock peeking out of Jet's boxers, and he opened wide for it while Jet was looking the other way. He hadn't done this in a while, but he took what he could from hazy memory and everything he'd idly wished for while jerking off. That sharp taste under his tongue was a visceral memory; he liked this a lot, and only now could he recall just how much. He tried to take it all in a few times, and succeeded by a hair's breadth. It was worth any discomfort for the sounds Jet made when his dick reached the back of Spike's throat. The discomfort itself was kind of nice, too.

“You wanna fuck in the shower?” Spike asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “That way we won't have to clean up afterward.”

Jet tangled his heavy, metal hand in Spike's hair and gently pushed down.

Spike lost all sense of time and place for the brief span of those few minutes between Jet's powerful legs. He took a gamble and made it sloppy, the way he himself liked it, and he pitied whoever might have been within hearing distance. When Jet's thighs began to tense up and the hand in Spike's hair lost all sense of courtesy, Spike slowed down a little. He mouthed his way further and further down. Suddenly, he gave in to impulse, sat straight up and pulled Jet's hips forward so his ass rested right on top of Spike's erection.

“Oh—I think I get the picture,” Jet said. He half grinned, half grimaced from having been so abruptly manhandled. “So, you wanna be on top, huh?”

“What do you think?” Spike pushed his hips into Jet's ass. The slight pressure was enough to drag a groan out of him. He grabbed a handful of the ass he'd been sneaking peeks at for years now, and began to move in earnest. 

“But—ah...” He'd started to pant. “You're probably used to being top dog.”

“Uh, no, not really. I mean, not always.”

“Not always?”

“What I mean is...” Jet was actually turning pink. “Um, we used to switch off. Me and...”

“Come on, Jet. Shower.”

“I'm not doing it in the shower!”

“Where, then? Faye's room?”

“What?! No! Although...she would be so mad if she found out.”

They both started to chuckle.

“Let's just go to my room. I don't think my knees can take a tile floor these days.”

What a picture. It was a so compelling a picture, they didn't make it to Jet's room. Halfway down the hall, Spike had him pinned against a door for a few more kisses, just enough to last them the short journey to the bed. He gave into impulse yet again, and began to roughly stroke them both with one hand.

“Spike...we're almost there. We better keep moving.”

The words pierced through the haze, but their meaning didn't register. Spike simply turned Jet around, and ground against his ass.

“Spike!”

“Shh...”

“You—don't shush me!”

“I need...”

“In my room, in my room.”

They all but fell through the door.

It turned out to be the wrong room, but it all worked out in the end. They threw down a blanket among the bonsai trees, and Spike lay Jet on his stomach. There had been a small bottle of lube in Spike's breast pocket this whole time, and he had simply forgotten about it. A recent purchase from Mars, “Just in case.”

This, Spike had never done before.

“Tell me if it hurts,” he said. He was two fingers deep, and somehow the feeling had gone straight to his cock, which rested, wet and dejected, against Jet's upper thigh.

“You're doing good. But I'm gonna come soon, so...”  
“You telling me to hurry up?” He teased.

Spike slathered himself in a whole palmful of lube and pressed his way in as slowly as could. Fingers had been an obstacle, but Jet opened up for his cock so easily. Spike straddled him and began a gentle rhythm. He'd gone in easy, but Jet was still so tight. He'd never had such a large and imposing presence beneath him; moans had never been so guttural, sweat never carried that masculine note that, mingling with his own, body against body and sweat on sweat, made his head swim with its potency.

“Can you go deeper?”

Jet's voice came to him tense, strained. Spike felt for Jet's cock, trapped beneath him, and pulled it back between his legs. With every thrust, he rubbed along its shaft, pinched the head, tugged gently at the heavy balls.

“Yeah...”

He picked up the pace, driving in and pulling out almost all the way. Jet was beginning to push back against him, and their breath came together in rasping starts and stops.

“Spike, gonna come soon.”

“Yeah. Me too. Inside okay?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Jet came first with a shout dissolving into a groan. His shoulders slumped, his whole body relaxed, and Spike had to hold on tightly to his hips just to keep from slipping out. Only a moment later, he came, too, happy in the knowledge that Jet had been the first, and happy also that he'd gotten to come inside just like he'd wanted to from the very start of the evening. But it seemed like he would never stop coming; the feeling washed over him in waves and waves, and he realized dimly his hips were still moving, he still had Jet in an iron grip.

“Sorry—ah—”

 

By the end of the evening, they finally ended up in Jet's room.

“I'm a syndicate boy,” Spike said, sitting up in bed. “Or, I was.”

“I know. It seems history is repeating itself.”

Jet's eyes were tightly shut, but he clearly wasn't asleep. Spike leaned over him to make out his expression, clutching his metal arm and passing his fingers over the many dip and ridges. Some were duller than others, more worn. It was an amazing piece of technology for how antiquated it was. Any time someone suggested it could benefit from an upgrade, Jet would start to grumble.

“Would you shelter me?” Spike asked. He gently bit the leather strap that helped to secure the prosthetic in place.

“I already am!”

Spike laughed.

“I guess so. I should thank you for that, by the way.”

Jet just grumbled, and graciously submitted to being held throughout the night.


End file.
